


As You Really Are

by Lauralot



Series: Alexander Pierce should have died slower [22]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Non-Sexual Age Play, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5586838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's putting himself back in the public eye.</p><p>Before he can do that, he needs to open up to a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As You Really Are

**“Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?”**

— Alexander Pierce, _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_

  


“It’s no use.”

Crystal lets the hairbrush fall onto the futon, sighing as she slumps back.

Bucky glances from the picture on Crystal’s phone to the unsecured braid quickly coming undone as she leans against the futon. “I thought it looked nice,” he says.

“Maybe for the first couple of inches. But then I can’t see what I’m doing at the back, and it gets all uneven and messy.”

The back looked fine as far as Bucky could tell, but given that all he ever does with his own hair is leave it lay, pull it back, or hide it under a hat as he’s done now, he figures that maybe his opinion isn’t welcome.

He’s at Crystal’s apartment. He’d come over to meet her new kitten, and then the cat-admiring had given way to watching one of Crystal’s favorite cartoons. But then they were only a couple of episodes into that before Crystal got a text message and the show had to be put on hold so she could figure out what to wear tonight.

She says that she’s been texting and IMing back and forth with a lady in the city that she met on something called FetLife, and now the lady wants to have dinner. That made Bucky’s stomach clench in worry before Crystal explained they’re both bringing friends with them. She even invited Bucky along, but it’s Movie Night at the tower today.

Picking an outfit was easy. Hairstyles, it seems, are a lot harder.

Bucky glances from the laptop, still paused on Amethyst hurling herself at a comet, to the phone, to Crystal’s hair. “I could try?” he offers.

Crystal’s mouth drops open faintly before she smiles. “Really? You’d be okay with that?”

In the time they’ve known each other, they’ve only touched twice. Both on the same day, and both initiated by her. The second time they met, she’d put her hand on top of his. Or rather, on the glove he wears to hide the metal. Both times, it was intended as a gesture of comfort, but Bucky could only worry that she’d feel the lack of flesh beneath the leather. She’d look through the disguise to what he really was and run.

And who could blame her?

Crystal hadn’t run. She hadn’t noticed. But she must have noticed the way Bucky started at her touch, as she hasn’t put her hands on him since. And maybe she warned the friends that she introduced him to, because they don’t touch him either.

It feels safe. And like he’s interacting from behind glass, but better that than scaring them off.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. His voice is steadier than he feels. “I mean, I don’t think I’ll be any good at it, but I can try a wave braid.”

“Waterfall braid,” Crystal says. Her phone has gone black and she taps it, punching in the passcode so that the tutorial comes back up. “Just try not to put any knots in it, all right?”

“I know the difference between braids and knots.” Although there’s a blurry memory telling him he knows the difference because once he put Jo’s hair in knots by mistake.

He takes the brush, gently combing out the last attempt at the braid. There are eyes on him, and he turns to see Bucky Bear staring from the opposite arm of the futon. The bear’s leaning against Crystal’s big stuffed bumblebee, Beezus. Bucky Bear wasn’t sure how he felt about befriending a bee when they first arrived; after all, he’d seen enough of _Winnie the Pooh_ to know how bees felt about bears. But then they’d bonded over their shared desire not to shredded by Crystal’s kitten.

The kitten, a tiny calico named Pico de Gato, hops into Bucky’s lap and swats at his sleeve.

 _Be careful_ , Bucky Bear cautions. Bucky isn’t sure what he means. Careful not to get clawed? Not to let Crystal feel the prosthetic? Not to pull her hair?

He tries to be careful about all of them.

“Uh,” Bucky says after a few minutes of effort.

“Does uh mean knots?”

“It means I think I’m worse at this than you were.” It’s hard to braid with a hand that barely feels something as fine as hair, especially when that hand has an added layer blocking sensation. Add in a kitten batting at the strands and a fear of applying any pressure whatsoever, and well, it looks less like a braid and more like some very specific tangles. “Sorry.”

Crystal reaches back to feel his efforts, and Bucky pulls his hands away, disguising it as an attempt to stop Pico de Gato from swatting at her. “At least you tried.” She picks up the brush, combing out her hair again, and then checks her phone. “We probably won’t be interrupting anyone’s lunch if we knock on doors.”

Bucky’s throat goes dry. He must not have heard her right. “You want to knock on doors to see if someone can braid your hair?”

“Hey, it’s better than the kids who go around pretending to sell candy for charity.”

Bucky Bear does not like this plan in the least.

“Do you know the people who live around you?” He tries not to let his voice crack.

“We say hello in the stairwell all the time. Sometimes I help Mr. Dubicki carry groceries, I fed Mrs. Okoye’s dogs while she was gone for the weekend, that sort of thing.” She catches Bucky’s look and smiles. “It’s okay. It’s not like I’m going to knock on every single door. Just the people I’m familiar with. You’ve never asked your neighbors for favors?”

Bucky tries to pull up the memories. He wants to say that his mother probably loaned another housewife a cup of sugar or something, but he can’t actually remember that. He goes to other floors of the tower all the time, but that’s different from an apartment, really. It’s more like living in one giant house.

He shrugs.

“It’ll be fine,” Crystal says, but Bucky Bear still insists on coming along for safety.

*

“Why do I have to wear lipstick?” Bucky tries not to squirm away from the makeup artists. It’s easier staying still when he’s five than it is right now.

“Because the lighting will flush out the natural colors of your face on camera,” one of the artists—Bobbi, he thinks—says. He’s pretty sure this is at least the third time they’ve explained this, but that doesn’t make him loosen his grip on the arms of his chair at all.

“Why do you need to see the color of my lips? Who even looks at that?” He’s not trying to whine, honestly. But it’s not like he can help being uncomfortable when he’s sitting down and having people come at his head with various implements.

“The world.”

 _Maybe the world needs better hobbies,_ Bucky does not say. Shouldn’t they care more what he’s saying than whether or not he has mascara or the shade of his blush or if his hair has been gently curled under?

“Happens to me every time I have to go on camera too,” Tony says. He’s suddenly in the room with them, blocking Bucky’s view of the mirror. “That is, when I’m planning to be filmed. There’s a handful of videos online that—well, they’re pretty spectacular, but they’d have been even better if I had some foundation and—”

“James doesn’t want to hear that.” Now Pepper’s beside him. “No one wants to hear that.”

“I’m sure many respectable publications would be interested in my opinion on the proper staging of—”

“James,” Pepper says. She smiles at him. “You look great. Once the filming’s done, I have a list of journalists who are willing to set up an interview along our terms.”

The terms are that they submit their questions in writing, and Bucky sends his answers in kind. He wasn’t ready for a face to face interview, even one that would be transcribed into print. The thought of panicking and regressing—sure, they could set up some clause to keep that from appearing in the article, but Bucky can’t bear the idea of a stranger watching something so intimate. Judging it.

People are judging him enough anyway. Pepper and Tony told him as much when they started coming up with the guidelines for interviews.

“You are absolutely not talking to Reddit,” Pepper had said, scratching that off the list of potentials with a thick, heavy stroke of her pen.

“But people do it all the time.” Bucky had even read some of them. He was surprised Tony had never done an AMA; it seemed right up his alley, swooping in and getting all the attention.

“They won’t ask you about the initiative,” Pepper had said, shaking her head. “They’ll ask questions about the Winter Soldier, and most of them will say awful things.”

Bucky’s stomach had twisted, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about that. “What if it was an Ask Me Anything About?” he’d offered. “Wouldn’t that keep it on topic?”

“Not in your case,” Tony said. “You were the focus of the biggest trial of the century, Bucky. Part of a conspiracy spanning almost a hundred years. You’re an Internet meme. There’s no way they wouldn’t jump on all that.”

The twisting in Bucky’s stomach had turned into cramping, and he tried not to visibly draw in on himself. “I’m an Internet meme?”

He was pretty sure that Pepper had kicked Tony under the table.

“A good meme!” Tony’d said, but he wasn’t meeting Bucky’s eyes. “Like Nyan Cat!”

Bucky doubted he was anything like Nyan Cat.

“James,” Pepper had said. “Right now, you have a very specific image in the public eye. Your charity work is going to change that, and people will realize there’s more to you than what the media’s made you out to be. And I’m sure there’ll be a day when you can talk to people online without fearing that they’ll throw your suffering back in your face as a joke. But for now, we need to stick to professional interviews in a controlled environment.”

And Bucky had agreed, because Pepper steered Stark Industries through all of Tony’s issues. She knew what she was talking about.

“We’ll have to narrow down the list, of course,” Pepper’s saying. Her voice draws him back to the present and he wishes it hadn’t, because now the other makeup artist—Lisa?—is coming at him with an eyeliner pencil, and that’s just unsettling. “But we can worry about that after you’re through here.”

“How many of them agreed?” Bucky asks. Pepper had made a huge list. As far as he can tell, every major newspaper and magazine in the country had been on it, and that’s just in print. Add in the websites, and there were probably a thousand potential contacts.

“All of them.”

Bucky blinks and probably smears his eyeliner. “All of them?”

“Obviously, that’s too many,” Pepper continues. “It would take months, unless we sent out a form letter. In which case no one would want it, because it would be the same as everyone else had. I suggest you do about five interviews, ten at the most. Any more than that, and there’s no way the articles will be done and ready to print by the day of the press conference.”

Bucky almost nods, but the makeup brush dusting his cheek reminds him to stay still. “They do know we’re only talking about the Initiative, right? This isn’t some kind of Winter Soldier tell-all?”

“I think they want to establish a rapport with you, James,” Pepper explains. “If you have a pleasant experience working with them on this, then maybe you’ll remember that if you ever want to do another interview. That kind of logic.”

“Almost done,” Bobbi says.

“Eye shadow?” Bucky protests, looking at her hand. He’ll concede that the eyeliner and lipstick make some sense. But why do his eyelids need defining? Don’t his eyebrows do a good enough job of letting the world know where those are?

“The whole world’s about to see you on your own terms for the first time, Bambi,” Tony says. Of course he’d try out that nickname when Bucky can’t throw anything at his head. “You’ve gotta look spectacular.”

“When I get outta this chair, I’m gonna—” Then the full implications of Tony’s words strike him, and Bucky falls silent. _The whole world’s about to see you._

“Yeah?” Tony asks. He sounds amused. “You’re going to what?”

The whole world.

Including his new friends.

*

Bucky Bear thinks that Bucky needs to breathe.

That’s easy for Bucky Bear to say. He isn’t the one that Crystal’s going to hate forever. He was only an accomplice.

Bucky doesn’t know how he got through filming the video for the press conference. Maybe it helped that he’d read the letter he wrote over and over until he had it memorized, barely ever glancing at the holographic teleprompter JARVIS pulled up. Or maybe it was because he was still numb with realization rather than panicking like he is now. And it must have helped that Tony told him to practice a few times before they shot, and just secretly filmed one of those takes. He said it was more natural.

There’s nothing natural about Bucky. He’s nearly a hundred years old and he barely looks thirty, and that’s without getting into the metal and wire entwined with his skeleton, melded into his flesh. It’s not natural to sleep in ice or to stay focused through electrocution. It’s not natural for a man his age to emulate a child, let alone take comfort from it. And it’s not natural to hide his identity from people he considers friends.

Bucky Bear thinks that Bucky’s upset about one thing, and using that as an excuse to abuse himself. He thinks that Bucky’s talked to his therapists about this a lot in the past, and that he needs to call them now. And he also thinks it’s very offensive for Bucky to refer to him as “just an accomplice,” because he is a highly trained operative and the bravest bear ever.

Call and tell them what? That he actually took their advice to meet people outside of the tower and find new ways to occupy his time, only then he never told them about it because he started those new relationships with a lie and knew they wouldn’t approve?

Maybe he could talk to Sam. Sam wasn’t the one who gave him that advice, so maybe he won’t be hurt that Bucky fucked it up. And Sam isn’t like Steve. He won’t frown and try to hide it when he realizes Bucky made new friends and hid them from him.

But Sam isn’t here. He’s in DC this week.

Bucky Bear argues that Bucky hasn’t lied. He introduced himself as James. That’s his name, and that what Pepper calls him, so he can’t even say that it’s a name no one uses. He wears a glove, but that’s not a disguise. Lots of people cover their prosthetics. Why shouldn’t he get to know people before he tells them everything about himself?

But it is lying: Lying by omission. When he did that with Natasha, she was just as angry about it as she was about Bucky hitting her. And that’s Natasha. She knows him. Every part of him, from the Soldier trying to kill her to the kid building a blanket fort in her room. He’s not nearly as open with Crystal or her friends, and he’d have probably gone on hiding his identity forever if he weren’t throwing himself back into the public eye.

Crystal’s going to hate him. They all will. At best, she’ll consider him a dangerous, potentially violent liar who can’t be trusted. At worst, she’ll think he’s a pervert, getting off by luring unwitting innocents in the sort of games he played with Pierce. Either way, she’ll never want to see him again. She won’t feel safe going to Toy Box for fear of crossing paths. She probably won’t even feel secure in her own apartment now that the Winter Soldier’s been there.

He needs to talk to someone. At least, that’s what Bucky Bear says. As soon as they were done filming, Bucky had fled to his room and closed the doors so he could panic without dragging anyone else into his stupidity. Bucky Bear says the others are probably worried.

Bucky picks up the cell phone on his night stand. He does need to talk to someone. He owes it to Crystal to tell her the truth instead of hiding in the tower until he’s all over the news and she puts it together herself.

 _Can we talk?_ he types.

Two minutes pass before the phone chimes with a new text. _At work. Shift ends in half an hour. Call you?_

It would be easier over the phone. Let the words rush out and end the call. But it’d be easier to chicken out too. Make up something else and go back to hiding. And hasn’t he done enough hiding from his supposed friends as is?

 _Can I meet you there?_ he replies.

His stomach sinks at the thought of essentially ambushing her at her job, but at least they’ll be in public. And there, she’ll be able to run if she wants to.

*

The first words out of his mouth are “I’m sorry,” and Bucky knows it won’t be the last time he says them.

Crystal’s frowning, but it’s a frown of concern rather than anger or disgust, so it doesn’t make things any easier. She’s sitting at a table outside the coffee shop, holding two drinks. One’s a bubble tea. He knows it’s meant for him.

She bought him a drink. Bucky feels hot and suddenly trapped, as if his skin is too tight around him. Like he can peel it off and reveal what he really is inside. The mental image is something that belongs in a horror movie, and it strikes Bucky as appropriate. That’s what he is, isn’t he? The wolf in sheep’s clothing, poisoning the places that ought to be safe.

In his backpack, Bucky Bear scoffs. He doesn’t think the kind of monster that’s constantly apologizing for its existence is a very scary monster at all.

Bucky wants to squeeze him, but the bear has to stay in the pack. Otherwise he’d seem like an emotional ploy or a sick game.

“What’s wrong?” Crystal asks. She’s standing up to push Bucky’s chair back for him, and he’d give anything to vanish. Curl in on himself tighter and tighter until nothing’s left. “James? Are you okay?”

He makes himself nod and sit, taking a sip of the tea to try and steady himself. It tastes sweet, almost cloying, and it feels as though it’s flooding his mouth. He has to work not to gag.

“James?” Crystal’s hand hovers close to his, but she doesn’t touch. A real friend wouldn’t worry her like this. A real friend would stop by to ask how her date went, not to tell her that he’s actually one of history’s most prolific assassins. “What’s wrong?”

He forces a swallow. It makes his throat feel raw. It shouldn’t be such a struggle to make himself meet her eyes; it’s not like he didn’t maintain eye contact with most of the people he stabbed.

They’d liked that in Russia, he thinks. They said it made a nice impact.

Bucky reaches up—his hand is steady, that’s good—and pulls off his hat. Strands of hair fall in his face, blocking his vision, and he shakes his head to clear them. It was necessary, making himself look different on the way out of the tower to ensure that he wouldn’t be followed or harassed. But now it feels like some dramatic unveiling, and he hates it. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” Crystal asks.

“I—” He falters, fingers brushing against his face. They come away with traces of powder. The makeup. He hadn’t taken it off.

Fantastic. Another theatrical complication that he doesn’t want to deal with.

“I—I was filming a thing,” he mutters. “It doesn’t matter. Look, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s important.”

Crystal, who had looked like she was about to ask what he’d been filming, falls silent. Her eyes look round. Worried.

Bucky opens his mouth again and doesn’t throw up on his shoes, which he’s willing to consider a resounding success in this situation. In the backpack, Bucky Bear snorts.

“I haven’t been honest with you,” he begins. “About myself. Who I am.”

Something shifts in Crystal’s gaze. He can’t identify it. And he’s come too far to stop, so he barrels on.

“I—that first night I went to Toy Box, I don’t know what I expected to get out of it. I was—it’s—I was dealing with a lot at home and I hated myself and I just wanted to get _away_ , to be around a bunch of strangers who might know what I was going through and I know that’s selfish, expecting some whole community to cater to my issues, but I didn’t know what to do. And then you were there, and you were nice to me, and I should have been honest with you but I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, and I was worried that if you knew you’d hate me and you wouldn’t want to play with blocks or bears or anything else, so I just didn’t tell you. But that’s _wrong_ , it’s not fair to you and it screws up the whole balance and—”

“James—”

“And you’ve been so nice to me and I’ve been lying the whole—”

“James!” Crystal says. “Are you trying to tell me you’re Bucky Barnes?”

Bucky stares. His mouth hasn’t caught up to his mind and he’s still trying to stammer out apologies, but all he ends up doing is biting his lip. “You—you knew?”

In the backpack, Bucky Bear is very angry. He doesn’t like that some civilian could identify Bucky, and he’s beginning to wonder if she’s a civilian at all. But Bucky’s just frozen, gaping.

And Crystal—she _smiles_ , in a faintly annoyed kind of way. “I’ve been seeing pictures of Captain America and Bucky Barnes since before I could read,” she says. “You’re in every American history textbook. And you had the most watched trial since, I don’t even know, OJ? You think they didn’t do close-ups during the coverage?”

Bucky’s mouth works. There’s no sound coming out; it’s as if his brain has forgotten language.

“Besides,” Crystal says. “Your name is James, you said your friend was named Steve, and your hand’s made of metal. I could tell when I touched it.”

Bucky Bear is livid.

“And—and you’re not mad?” His voice is so small.

“Why would I be mad?” Crystal asks. She takes his hand, holds tight. She doesn’t flinch at the feel of the metal under his glove. “I’ve seen the things people say about you. Of course you don’t want to announce your presence wherever you go.”

“But I lied.”

“Celebrities aren’t lying when they wear sunglasses and hats and stuff to have a day to themselves,” Crystal says. “I just wanted to give you time. I figured it’s something we could talk about when you were ready.”

He’s too hot again, and his skin’s too tight. But it’s not just his skin. It’s everything, his skull and ribs and the scar tissue where the metal meets his flesh, all pulling tighter and tighter, threatening to force out his insides and make a filthy, disgusting puddle on the pavement. The sort of thing everyone would rightly avoid.

His eyes are wet.

“James,” Crystal says. “What’s wrong? I’m not mad at you.”

“You should be!” His voice is loud, too loud, and he can feel eyes lingering on them for a moment. He takes a deep breath. “I’m—I’m not like you. I shouldn’t have come there. I’m dirty.”

“Hey.” Now it’s Crystal’s voice that’s loud and sharp. It’s Crystal who’s making people look at them. “You aren’t. You really think you’re the only person who ever uses age play to comfort yourself? That you’re the only one who’s been abused? You can’t say stuff like that, James—there are a lot of people you could really hurt if they heard that you think people can only be little for the ‘right’ reasons.”

But it’s different. It’s not that everyone’s wrong; it’s just him. “But this isn’t something I chose. It’s—”

“It’s something that makes you feel better now,” Crystal says. He’s never seen her look stern before. It feels like talking to Peggy, even though Crystal doesn’t look a thing like her. “And you’re not forcing it onto anyone. That’s what matters. Lots of people don’t learn about things in a safe, sane, and consensual way. It doesn’t mean you can’t change that as you go.”

“I—” Bucky’s free hand is scrubbing at his eyes. He can’t keep from sniffling. “I’m different—”

“I think you want to be mad at yourself.” Crystal’s voice isn’t sharp anymore. It’s soft, but like a warm blanket draped over stone. It’s still firm underneath. “Look, I’m not a doctor. I haven’t even taken any psych courses. But you haven’t done anything wrong, Bucky. I know you’ve been through a lot, and sometimes it’s just easier—more familiar, I guess—to be mad at yourself. But I don’t hate you. Judah and Dakota don’t either. And yes,” she adds before he can ask, “they know.”

“What if I’d never told you?” His own voice is choked. “Or if you hadn’t known who I was?”

“I did, and you did,” Crystal says. “Please don’t torture yourself with hypotheticals. You should drink some of your tea.”

He does. This time, it doesn’t hurt to swallow. “Thank you,” Bucky mutters.

“Don’t mention it. I get discounts on all our products.”

Bucky shakes his head, searching for words. “I just...I always feel like I mess everything up.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Crystal lets go of his hand, though she pats it before she pulls away completely. “But you didn’t mess up. Not here.”

He takes a breath, wiping his sleeve at his eyes once again. They’re dry now, but he can’t help the compulsion. He freezes.

“James?”

“There’s mascara all over my face now, isn’t there?”

“Move your hair so I can see,” she says, leaning in once he complies. “It hasn’t even smudged. Whoever put it on you must have had some really good stuff. Now, can I hear what it was for?”

“Can I hear about your date?” he asks, and Crystal smiles.

“You first.”

“I can’t go first,” Bucky protests. “I’m supposed to drink my tea.”

Crystal laughs and nods. Then she begins.

*

“You’re sure about this?”

“Buck,” Steve says. “I was sure the last twenty times you asked me. I promise I’m sure now.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Bucky says, even as Steve is squeezing onto his hand. “You can go home if you want to.”

“Bucky.” They come to a stop at an intersection and Steve’s other hand is on his face, turning his head until their eyes meet. “I wouldn’t have left the tower if I wasn’t sure, okay? I want to be there for you, no matter what part of your life it is. I’m happy when you’re happy. I’m not going to be uncomfortable or embarrassed or anything like that. Remember what I told you during the trial? I like playing with you. It’s not a chore for me.”

The WALK sign illuminates and Bucky looks away, letting Steve guide him over the crosswalk. “It might end up in the papers. If someone sees us.”

“I don’t care what people say,” Steve says firmly. “They say stuff about me all the time, Buck. I’m an Internet meme. I don’t listen to it.”

Bucky’s silent for a moment, content to let Steve lead him. “Does Tony ever send you memes of yourself?”

“Sometimes,” Steve says, reddening. “The nicer ones. I’m pretty sure he started a few of ‘em.”

Bucky can’t quite hold in a giggle. “Can I see them?”

“Absolutely not.”

They’re a few minutes late to the meet-up once they get to Toy Box. Just late enough that almost everyone else is there, but no one’s really started playing or reading yet, so all eyes are on them once they step inside.

Bucky knows that they’re staring because he brought Captain America to play. But it feels like everybody’s looking at him. Like they see _all_ of him: the Winter Soldier, the war hero, and the little boy who played Godzilla with a bear and some blocks last time he was here. And something else. The Bucky Barnes that he doesn’t have a name for, the one who’s just there when nobody’s looking.

It should be scary, or at least uncomfortable. The way it used to feel when the HYDRA doctors opened him up to look at his insides. But it’s not. It doesn’t really feel like anything. Like all those parts go together, and he solved a puzzle without really trying.

He’d thought it would be hard to be little tonight. But it’s only a few minutes before he’s settling on Daddy’s lap as Daddy guides his hand through the finger paints.

They draw a kitten together. It’s not the same colors as Pico de Gato, but Bucky figures Crystal might like it anyway. Then they a draw a red panda. Then Daddy lets go of Bucky’s hand and he makes what starts as a bear, but ends up as a bunch of colors that don’t really have any shape. Bucky still likes it, though. The colors are nice.

Daddy cleans his fingers off with a wet wipe, and then Bucky Bear knocks down some blocks again. That’s when Crystal comes over—he’s never seen her look _shy_ before—with a book about badgers and asks if Daddy will read it for everybody.

Daddy says yes. Bucky has to move out of his lap, but it’s a funny story with parts that talk about all kinds of really good-sounding foods, so Bucky doesn’t mind so much. He needs to find a copy of the book once they get home so he can try making all the stuff the characters eat at their picnic.

Once the story’s over, when Bucky is getting back to cuddling Daddy, he feels a tug on his sleeve.

“Hey,” Crystal says. “Now that I know everything, and you know that I know everything, does this mean I can come play at your house sometimes too?”

Bucky looks at Daddy, and Daddy nods.

**Author's Note:**

> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/152680774@N07/35909660476/in/dateposted-public/)
> 
> Sorry for the delay on this installment! I was busy with Christmas things and then I got a bad case of strep.
> 
> A [waterfall braid](http://www.seventeen.com/beauty/a22606/waterfall-braid-how-to/) is probably not nearly as complicated as I've made it out to be, although I've never tried to do one on myself.
> 
> The cartoon that Bucky and Crystal are watching together is [_Steven Universe._](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Universe)
> 
> Bucky's makeup artists are named for [Bobbi Brown](http://www.bobbibrowncosmetics.com/) and [Lisa Elridge](http://www.lisaeldridge.com/).
> 
> The picture book that Steve reads is _Best Friends for Frances_ by Russell and Lillian Hoban.
> 
> Check out this lovely APSHDS-inspired fic: _[Depression is Three Times More Common](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5578348/chapters/12857281)_ by [VoiceOfNurse.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/VoiceOfNurse/pseuds/VoiceOfNurse)


End file.
